This paper provides a welfare comparison of a tariff with a combination of a production subsidy to, and a commodity tax on, an import-competing commodity in a two-country economy. We treat some plausible situations of industry protection, including where the initial tariff is above the optimal...

We consider the interactions between domestic lobbying and two types of cross-border lobbying in a Customs Union (CU). The two types of cross-border lobbying are (i) lobbying from firms in one CU country to the governments of other CU countries, and (ii) that from firms outside the CU. We focus...

WTO negotiations deal predominantly with bound - besides applied - tariff rates. But, how can reductions in tariffs ceilings, i.e. tariff rates that no exporter may ever actually be confronted with, generate market access? The answer to this question relates to the effects of tariff bindings on...

This paper examines the effect of cross-border lobbying on domestic lobbying and on external tariffs in both Customs Union (CU) and Free Trade Area (FTA). We do so by developing a two-stage game which endogenizes the tariff formation function in a political economic model of the directly...

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that exclusive owners of an advanced technology are always better off when producing as a monopolist than when competing against another firm. Competition against a less efficient firm weakens the power that a host country can exert on the incumbent...

The paper contributes to the discussion about the revenue implications of trade reform by assessing the approximate fiscal revenue impact of different liberalization formulae under consideration in multilateral trade negotiations for a group of low- and middle-income countries. The study applies...

This study explores tariff cooperation under a representative democracy, comparing national welfare realized in three trading regimes: most favored nation (MFN), customs union (CU), and free trade agreement (FTA). Two points are addressed: Why have FTAs increased in recent decades when...

This paper estimates the short-run effects of tariffs on United States tablet computer prices and welfare. Market-level data are used to estimate a model of demand, supply and trade policy and to simulate equilibria prices and sales in scenarios with tariffs on Chinese production. A 25 percent...

This paper studies the macroeconomic impact of higher tariffs using a two-country DSGE model with endogenous trade and heterogeneous firms. The analysis consists of two scenarios. First, we assume that one country increases tariffs while the other does not. Second, both countries raise tariffs....

This paper presents a new methodology to detect corruption in customs and applies it to Madagascar’s main port. Manipulation of assignment of import declarations to inspectors is identified by measuring deviations from random assignment prescribed by official rules. Deviant declarations are...